AYURVEDA BONANZA…It was a round-up old Ayurveda and new Ayurveda at the expo with herbal hard-boiled candies, jellies, toffees, sherbet, distilled herbal arq, turmeric and multigrain biscuits, even delicious chywanprash gummies and toffees! All of which can well replace the current junk food in the market place with more health-conscious benefits!
By Tara Narayan
OH! There was so much to buy by way of nutraceutical products (a fancier word for health-conscious along various definations) at the recent 9th World Ayurveda Congress and Arogya Expo 22 in Panaji. Alas, my poor media pockets are not so warm anymore and I was not buying except for a few magazines. Never mind that I already have so many old magazines to get rid of at home and am constantly being nagged to get rid of them in vain.
This time around I discovered India or Bharatdesh’s most ancient jam called chywanprash a little more closely, I mean there are so many versions of this classical traditional Ayurveda “jam” which is such a bestseller and new versions keep coming into the market. I’m not sure if one may spread this Indian gooseberry or aonla-based tonic jam atop hot buttered toast or not – somebody tell me! But I do have a soft corner for…er…chywanprash. Several of the 100 odd companies showcasing the medical herbs of Ayurveda (it’s a vast pharmacopeia) were offering their chywanparash for tasting and I tasted some of them…and also got carried away by the herbal powders, tablets, capsules, jellies, hard candies and what not. I mean, is this traditional Ayurveda anymore? Well, both traditional and modern versions of various interesting products were there to make up one’s own mind about them.
TURMERIC-INFUSED BISCUITS
HEY, at one of the stalls I was so enchanted by these turmeric-infused biscuits like a superior version of our plain Marie biscuits (but forgot to make a note of the company making them, a company from the Punjab I think) – they were delicious. The idea is to make more health-conscious snacks available for adults and children and I have no problems with that – this is the great nutraceutical products market coming up in recent times.
These offshoot Ayurveda entrepreneurs are just concentrating on healthier things like candies of turmeric, mint, ginger, tulsi, redolent of other herbs, also jelly gums of Ayurveda’s best-selling “jam” we all recognize as chywanprash (the Nutralite people have their version of chywanprash as well as some jello multi-vitamins for kids’ appeal, quite delicious).
To stay with chywanprash I noticed now they are several upgraded versions, as in chwanprash for children, women, men, pregnant women, lactating mothers, etc. I’ve got quite a fondness for this quintessential healthy “jam” of Ayurveda fame, and it is the most ancient jam of them all for sure. Most of us in India have heard about the charms of chywanprash and how it is the one tonic we may swear by and many a mother asks her children, “Have you taken your chywanprash before going to school?”
Well, this is to say there is so much chywanprash in the Ayurveda market nowadays with all the biggies of Ayurveda as well as the nutraceutical companies jumping onto the bandwagon of Ayurveda producing it, and it may be good, bad or even ugly. There was also medicated ghee, honey, herbal sherbet and all kinds of come-lately products on show and sale — some quite impressive. How Ayurvedic they were is of course worth looking into but I dare say most are bona fide enough to satisfy the modern half or fully destroyed urban palate! For example, in Ayurveda protocol one may use only certain kinds of prescribed raw sugar or jaggery or best of all honey (which is the best preservative of them all and most nutritious). Cannot use the synthetic sweeteners which are said to be carcinogenic, make a note of this. Always check labels before you buy something.
At one stall there were all these hard candies infused with “tulasi,” “pudina,” “thuthuvalai,” “amla,” and ginger – sweetened with sugar/liquid glucose. I would boil a cup of water with one of them and relish them! Somewhere I even saw Dr Vaidya’s New Age My Prash “Chyawan Gummies” and “Chyawan Toffee” which “help boost immunity and “Kadha Sips” (“fast relief from cold, cough and sore throat”)…actually, very agreeable itsy bitsies to tempt children to like them of course (Rs5 per candy or toffee presumably). The Namaste people too have their Immune Up Ancient Kadha “100% ORAC Value, high in antioxidant, 17 immunity building herbs”…you pour in a cup, add hot water, and drink up. All kinds of de-tox sips…except that I wonder if the Ayurveda pharmacies or new generic pharmacies will be stocking them. You may go and create a demand if you wish!
I DID buy a sachet of Annai Arivindh Herbals “Tulasi” powder though for Rs35. This is a GMP Certified company ISO 9001:2015 certified, appealing packing with all information listed. A Chennai-based company doing “Suddhi method to ensure full efficacy during usage.” Tulasi or tulsi powder (Ocimum sanctum, dried leaveds in powder form) is used therapeutically for easing running nose, cough, cold, body pain…dose is 1-2gm twice or thrice a day after food with warm water or as directed by the physician”
They do a whole lot of other herbal powders similarly and reportedly there’s enough state-of-the art machinery now to arrive at pure herbal powders although in moist conditions herbal powders grow fungus quickly and sometimes these Ayurveda medicines are accused of too much heavy metal like lead, arsenic, mercury (some countries have banned India’s Ayurveda products, Canada has banned India’s Chywanprash which Indian grandmothers insist their grandchildren eat for breakfast).
WHAT is chywanprash really? Traditionally this Ayurveda “jam” is supposed to be at least 50% “amalaki fruit” or aonla-based with small amounts of some 50 or so herbs and spices, chywanprash is supposed to ignite, bolster immunity, extremely pitta balancing, foster clarity and health in blood, liver, digestive tract. All the Ayurveda biggies from Patanjali, Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala, Himalaya Herbals, Apollo Life, Sri Sri Tattva Ayurveda, Hamdard, Organic India, Darbur, Baidyanath…have chywanprash in the market. I like the slightly dark melting chywanprash which is sour sweet and not so sweet.
The new sugar-free health restorative called “Ratnaprash” is quite delicious. Baidyanath too tasted good when I tasted it at the expo; ditto for the Nutralite chywanprash. But don’t go by taste alone, go for the one with most aonla in it and the sweetener is honey (if it is asli it’s best preservative of them all). Most learned Ayurvaidya or acharya (doctors, physicians of Ayurveda) prescribe chyawanprash for improving digestion and excretion! Once the body is de-toxed it works better, no? Chyawanprash is said to improve immunity, longevity, stamina and rest of it.
THIS is to say it was quite an exhaustive walkathon through the seven or eight zig-zag gallaries featuring Ayurveda medicines, herbals, candies, sherbets, syrups, pickles, snacks, also traditional yoga equipment and much more to intrigue the mind…the Pillcraft people are also “Bringing Back” cannabis (Vijaya) and Ahiphena (OPM), but I have it on good account that some forms of cannabis or marijuana is legal and accepted as an effective painkiller. Many patients have testified to this.
Some mainstream Allopathy doctors are even prescribing cannabis it for cancer patients. Track down a Dr Lalit Anand in Mumbai if you can, formerly of GT Hospital. Cannabis is also recommended for TB patients in pain as also anyone on painkillers which have stopped working for the patient concerned (remember with the Allopathy drugs sooner or later they become addictive and work on the law of diminishing returns). Perhaps it is high time India legalized cannabis, especially if it was so happily being marketed at the 9th World Ayurveda Congress & International Arogya Expo in Goa!
Hell’s bells, it was undoubtedly a grand expo to showcase Ayurveda and some of the other “pathies” of AYUSH, and I have no doubt a mega fortune was spent on public account. It could have been more public-friendly with anyone tired or in need of a leek could get out at either end of the zig-zagging corridors — and be out on the road in five minutes. As it is many I know including me felt like they were caught in a rat trap and unable to leave in a hurry in an emergency moment! Sorry, lack of practical common-sense in my eyes. Even the sympathetic policemen and policewomen flocking the expo couldn’t do a thing except proffer a sorry to those who took the trouble to complain about public-unfriendly arrangements. Of course I complained!